Make Me Feel Alive
by Sweet Scarlett Angel
Summary: They grew up together. For most of their life they thought of each other as the annoying siblings, yet, they loved each other. As they grew, an attraction formed. The attraction turned into meetings at night, which ended in Natasha getting her heart broken. Now, months after Natasha went away, can Jace make amends with her?
1. Chapter 1

"The Court knows all that happens in their lands. Our presence won't go unnoticed." Natasha heard her sister loud and clearly. Involuntarily, a smile creeped up her face and she nodded to Meliorn. Simultaneously, they stepped out the shadows.

The seelie usually left people starstruck at first sight. This was due to their cold beauty and wild unearthliness. It had long been accepted as a rule for when the fey they encountered non-fey and these faeries were no exception.

His hair fell in blue-black sheets around a cool, sharp, lovely face; his eyes were green as vines or moss and there was the shape of a leaf, either a birthmark or tattoo, across one of his cheekbones. He wore an armor of a silvery brown like the bark of trees in winter, and when he moved, the armor flashed a multitude of colors: peat black, moss green, ash gray, sky blue.

The young woman was equally as beautiful, but she had a more human aspect. Big, doe brown eyes stared at them, with a maturity past their age. Light auburn tresses had neatly been pushed into a french braid, mixed with another braid adorning her head as a crown. She was dressed in a tiny white dress. The dress was made of a fine material, that much Clary could tell from a distance, it was strapless with a sweetheart neckline and fell down to a few inches above her knees. She had no armor on, unlike her male counterpart, but Clary realized quickly that she was not defenseless, knowing the doe eyes were an act and managing to catch the daggers strapped to her boots.

Isabelle gave a cry and jumped into his arms. "Meliorn!"

"Ah," said Simon, quietly and not without amusement, "so that's how she knows."

The faerie—Meliorn—looked down at her gravely, then detached her and set her gently aside. "This is not a time for affection," he said. "The Queen of the Seelie Court has requested an audience with the three Nephilim among you. Will you come?""

Clary put a protective hand on Simon's shoulder. "What about our friend?"

The female one—Natasha, Clary reminded herself— looked impassive. "Mundanes are not permitted in the Court."

"I wish someone had mentioned that earlier," said Simon, to no one in particular. "I take it I'm just supposed to wait out here until vines start growing on me?"

Meliorn considered. "That might offer significant amusement."

"Simon's not an ordinary mundane. He can be trusted," Jace said, startling them all, and Simon more than the rest. Clary could tell Simon was surprised because he stared at Jace without offering a single smart remark. "He has fought many battles with us."

"By which you mean one battle," muttered Simon. "Two if you count the one where I was a rat."

"We will not enter the Seelie Court without Simon," Clary said, her hand still on Simon's shoulder. "Your Queen requested this audience with us, remember? It wasn't our idea to come here."

There was a spark of dark amusement in Meliorn's green eyes. "As you wish," he said. "Let it not be said that the Seelie Court does not respect the desires of its guests." He spun on a perfectly booted heel and began to lead them down the corridor without pausing to see if they were following him. Isabelle hurried to walk alongside him, leaving Jace, Clary, and Simon to follow the two of them in silence with Natasha being their guide.

"Are you allowed to date faeries?" Clary asked finally. "Would your—would the Lightwoods be cool with Isabelle and what'shisname—"

"Meliorn," put in Simon."

"—Meliorn going out?"

"I'm not sure they're going out," Jace said, weighting the last two words with a heavy irony. "I'd guess they mostly stay in. Or in this case, under."

"You sound like you disapprove." Simon pushed a tree root aside. They had moved from a dirt-walled corridor to one lined with smooth stones, only the occasional root snaking down between the stones from above. The door was some kind of polished hard material , not marble but stone veined and with lines of shimmering material like powdered jewels.

"We don't disapprove exactly," chimed in Natasha, her voice low. "The faeries are known to dally with the occasional mortal, but they always end in abandoning them, usually the worse for wear." After saying that, she quickened her pace and caught up to Meliorn, whispering in his ear something.

Natasha's words sent a shiver down Clary's spine. At that moment Isabelle laughed, and Clary could see now why Natasha had spoken so softly, because the stone walls threw Isabelle's voice back to them amplified and echoing so that Isabelle's laughter seemed to bounce of the walls.

"You're so funny!" She tripped as the heel of her boot caught between two stones, and Meliorn caught and righted her without changing expression."

"I do not understand how you humans can walk in shoes that are that tall."

"It's my motto," said Isabelle, with a sultry smile. "Nothing less than seven inches."

Meliorn gazed at her stonily. Natasha allowed herself to fall behind, coming closer to Jace, the mundane and the newly discovered Shadowhunter.

"I'm talking about my heels," Isabelle was saying. "It's a pun. You know? A play on—"

"Come," the faerie knight said. "The Queen will be growing impatient." He headed down the corridor without giving Isabelle a second glance.

"I forgot," Isabelle muttered as the rest of them caught up to her. "Faeries have no sense of humor."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Jace. "There's a pixie nightclub downtown called Hot Wings. Not," he added, "that I have ever been there." As she felt herself falling, a soft squeal left Natasha's mouth, just at the right moment for Jace to catch her, mid sentence.

Simon looked at Jace, opened his mouth as if he intended to ask him a question, then seemed to think better of it. He closed his mouth with a snap just as the corridor opened out into a wide room whose door was packed dirt and whose walls were lined with high stone pillars twined all over with vines and bright owers bursting with color. Thin cloths were hung between the pillars, dyed a soft blue that was almost the exact hue of the sky. The room was filled with light, though Clary could see no torches, and the overall e ect was of a summer pavilion in bright sunshine rather than a dirt and stone room underground.

Clary's first impression was that she was outside; her second was that the room was full of people. There was a strange sweet music playing, awed with sweet-sour notes, a sort of aural equivalent of honey mixed with lemon juice, and there was a circle of faeries dancing to the music, their feet barely seeming to skim the oor. Their hair—blue, black, brown and scarlet, metal gold and ice white—flew like banners.

She could see why they were called the Fair Folk, for they were fair indeed with their pale lovely faces, their wings of lilac and gold and blue—how could she have believed Jace that they meant to harm her? The music that had jarred her ears at first now sounded only sweet. She felt the urge to toss her own hair and to move her own feet in the dance. The music told her that if she did that, she too would be so light that her feet would barely touch the earth. She took a step forward—

And was jerked back by a hand on her arm. Jace was glaring at her, his golden eyes bright as a cat's. Natasha had grabbed her arm, though, not Jace, and her eyes were shooting daggers at her. "If you dance with them," Jace said in a low voice, "you'll dance until you die."

Clary blinked at him. She felt as if she'd been pulled out of a dream, groggy and half-awake. Her voice slurred when she spoke. "Whaaat?"

Natasha made an impatient noise. She had Jace's stele in her hand; she hadn't seen him take it out and give it to the faerie, or even thought she'd know how to use them, the bits and pieces she'd heard from the Lightwoods and Jace implying that she kept close to her maternal heritage, preferring it over her Shadowhunter one. She gripped her wrist and inscribed a quick, stinging Mark onto the skin of her inner arm. "Now look."

She looked again—and froze. The faces that had seemed so lovely to her were still lovely, yet behind them lurked something vulpine, almost feral. The girl with the pink-and-blue wings beckoned, and Clary saw that her fingers were made of twigs, budded with closed leaves. Her eyes were entirely black, without iris or pupil. The boy dancing next to her had poison green skin and curling horns twisting from his temples. When he turned in the dance, his coat fell open and Clary saw that beneath it, his chest was an empty rib cage. Ribbons were woven through his bare rib bones, possibly to make him look more festive. Clary's stomach lurched.

"Come on." Jace pushed her and she stumbled forward. When she regained her balance, she looked around anxiously for Simon. He was up ahead and she saw that Isabelle had a firm grip on him. This once, she didn't mind. She doubted Simon would have made it through the room on his own.

Skirting the circle of dancers, they made their way to the far end of the room and through a parted curtain of blue silk. It was a relief to be out of the room and into another corridor, this one carved from a glossy brown material like the outside of a nut. Isabelle let go of Simon and he stopped walking immediately; when Clary caught up to him, she saw that this was because Isabelle had tied her scarf across his eyes. He was fiddling with the knot when Clary reached him. "Let me get it," she said, and he went still while she untied him and handed the scarf back to Isabelle with a nod of thanks.

Simon pushed his hair back; it was damp where the scarf had held it down. "That was some music," he observed. "A little bit country, a little bit rock and roll."

Meliorn, who had paused to wait for them, frowned. "You didn't care for it?"

"I cared for it a little too much," Clary said. "What was that supposed to be, some kind of test? Or a joke?"

He shrugged. "I am used to mortals who are easily swayed by our faerie glamours; not so the Nephilim. I thought you had protections."

"She does," Jace said, meeting Meliorn's jade green gaze with his own.

Meliorn only shrugged and began walking again. Simon kept pace beside Clary for a few moments without speaking before he said, "So, what did I miss? Naked dancing ladies?"

Clary thought of the male faerie's torn-open ribs and shuddered. "Nothing that pleasant."

"There are ways for a human to join the faerie revels," Isabelle, who had been eavesdropping, put in. "If they give you a token—like a leaf or a ower—to hold on to, and you keep it through the night, you'll be one in the morning. Or if you go with a faerie for a companion..." She shot a glance at Meliorn, but he had reached a leafy screen set into the wall and paused there.

"These are the Queen's chambers," Natasha said. "She's come from her Court in the north to see about the child's death. If there's to be war, she wants to be the one declaring it."

The screen was made of thickly woven vines, budded with amber droplets. Meliorn drew the vines apart and ushered them into the chamber on the other side.

Jace ducked through first, followed by Clary. She straightened up, looking around her curiously.

The room itself was plain, the earthen walls hung with pale fabric. Will-o'-the-wisps glowed in glass jars. A lovely woman reclined on a low couch surrounded by what must have been her courtiers—a motley assortment of faeries, from tiny sprites to what looked like lovely human girls with long hair ... if you discounted their black, pupil-less eyes.

"Mother," said Natasha, her voice ringing across the room, sinking to a low curtsey, her eyes, dark hooks to the soul, staring daringly back at the queen. "I have brought my fellow Nephilim to you."

The Queen sat up straight. She had long scarlet hair that seemed to float around her like autumn leaves in a breeze. Her eyes were clear blue as glass, her gaze sharp as a razor. "Three of these are Nephilim," she said. "The other is a mundane."

Meliorn seemed to shrink back, but the Queen didn't even look at him. Her gaze was on the Shadowhunters. Clary could feel the weight of it, like a touch. Despite her loveliness, there was nothing fragile about the Queen. She was as bright and hard to look at as a burning star.

"Our apologies, my lady." Jace stepped forward, putting himself between the Queen and his companions. His voice had changed its tone—there was something in the way he spoke now, something careful and delicate. "The mundane is our responsibility. We owe him protection. Therefore we keep him with us."

Natasha tilted her head to the side, like an interested bird. All her attention was on Simon. "A blood debt?" she murmured. "To a mundane?"

"He saved my life," Jace said. Clary felt Simon still beside her in surprise. She willed him not to show it. Faeries couldn't lie, Jace had said, and Jace wasn't lying, either—Simon had saved his life. That just wasn't why they'd brought him with them. Clary began to appreciate what Jace had meant by creative truth-telling. "Please, my lady. We had hoped you would understand. We had heard you were as kind as you were beautiful, and in that case—well," Jace said, "your kindness must be extreme indeed."

The Queen smirked and leaned forward, gleaming hair falling to shadow her face. "You are as charming as your father, Jonathan Morgenstern," she said, and gestured at the cushions scattered around the floor. "Come, sit beside me. Eat something. Drink. Rest yourselves. Talk is better with wet lips."

For a moment Jace looked thrown. He hesitated. Meliorn leaned over to him and spoke softly. "It would be unwise to refuse the bounty of the Queen of the Seelie Court."

Isabelle's eyes flicked toward him. Then she shrugged. "It won't hurt us just to sit down."

Meliorn led them over to a pile of silky cushions near the Queen's divan. Clary sat down cautiously, half- expecting there to be some kind of big sharp root just waiting to poke her in the behind. It seemed like the sort of thing the Queen would find amusing. But nothing happened. The cushions were very comfortable; she settled back with the others around her. Natasha followed her, and sat close by, so close to Jace that it was as if they were joined together, she saw with a sinking heart. _Not even an hour together, and yet, the legendary Natasha has him back. _

A pixie with bluish skin came toward them carrying a platter with four silver cups on it. They each took a cup of the gold-toned liquid. There were rose petals floating on the top.

Simon set his cup down beside him.

"Don't you want any?" the pixie asked.

"The last faerie drink I had didn't agree with me," he muttered.

Clary barely heard him. The drink had a heady, intoxicating scent, richer and more delicious than roses. She picked a petal out of the liquid and crushed it between her thumb and forefinger, releasing more of the scent.

Jace jostled her arm. "Don't drink any of it," he said under his breath."

"But—"

"Just don't."

She set the cup down, as Simon had done. Her finger and thumb were stained pink.

"Now," said the Queen. "Meliorn tells me you claim to know who killed our child in the park last night. Though I tell you now, it seems no mystery to me. A faerie child, drained of blood? Is it that you bring me the name of a single vampire? But all vampires are at fault here, for the breaking of the Law, and should be punished accordingly. Despite what may seem, we are not such a particular people."

"Oh, come on," said Isabelle. "It isn't vampires."

Jace shot her a look. "What Isabelle means to say is that we're almost certain that the murderer is someone else. We think he may be trying to throw suspicion on the vampires to shield himself."

"Have you proof of that?"

Jace's tone was calm, but the shoulder that brushed Clary's was tight with tension. "Last night the Silent Brothers were slaughtered as well, and none of them were drained of blood."

"And this has to do with our child, how? Dead Nephilim are a tragedy to Nephilim, but nothing to me."

Natasha felt a sharp sting at her left hand. Looking down, she saw the tiny shape of a sprite darting away between the pillows. A red bead of blood had risen on the palm of her hand on top of what she knew had to be a nasty bite. She brought her hand closer to her mouth with a wince. Carefully, she licked the blood away, despising every second and drop of blood. Once her hand was as clean as possible, she took out her stele and drew an iratze on it.

"The Soul-Sword was stolen as well," said Jace. "You know of Maellartach?"

"The sword that makes Shadowhunters tell the truth," said the Queen, with dark amusement. "We fey have no need of such an object."

"It was taken by Valentine Morgenstern," said Jace. "He killed the Silent Brothers to get it, and we think he killed the faerie as well. He needed the blood of a faerie child to enact a transformation on the Sword. To make it a tool he could use."

"And he won't stop," Isabelle added. "He needs more blood after that."

The Queen's high eyebrows were arched even higher.

"More blood of the Folk?"

"No," Jace said, shooting a look at Isabelle that Clary couldn't quite interpret. "More Downworlder blood. He needs the blood of a werewolf, and a vampire—"

The Queen's eyes shone with re ected light. "That seems hardly our concern."

"He killed one of yours," Isabelle said. "Don't you want revenge?"

Natasha looked at them, her gaze brushed them all like a moth's wing. "Not immediately," she said, her words eerily soft. "We are a patient folk, for we have all the time in the world. Valentine Morgenstern is an old enemy of ours — it is of both my ancestries—but the folk have enemies older still. We will be content to wait and watch."

"He's summoning demons to him," Jace said. "Creating an army—"

"Demons," said the Queen lightly, as her courtiers chattered behind her. "Demons are your charge, are they not, Shadowhunter? Is that not why you hold authority over us all? Because you are the ones who slay demons?"

"I'm not here to give you orders on behalf of the Clave. We came when you asked us because we thought that if you knew the truth, you'd help us."

"Is that what you thought?" The Queen sat forward in her chair, her long hair rippling and alive. "Remember, Shadowhunter, there are those of us who chafe under the rule of the Clave. Perhaps we are tired of fighting your wars for you."

"But it isn't our war alone," said Jace. "Valentine hates Downworlders more than he hates demons. If he defeats us, he'll go after you next."

The Queen's eyes bored into him.

"And when he does," said Jace, "remember that it was a Shadowhunter who warned you what was coming."

There was silence. Even the Court had fallen silent, watching their Lady. At last, the Queen leaned back on her cushions and took a swallow from a silver chalice. "Warning me about your own parent," she said. "I had thought you mortals capable of familial allegiance, at least, and yet you seem to feel no loyalty toward Valentine, your father."

Jace said nothing. He seemed, for a change, lost for words.

Sweetly, the Queen went on, "Or perhaps this hostility of yours is the pretense. Love does make liars out of your kind."

"But we don't love our father," said Clary, as Jace remained frighteningly silent. "We hate him."

"Do you?" The Queen looked almost bored.

"You know how the bonds of family are, my Lady Mother," said Natasha, softly, her voice clinging on deceit. "They cling as tightly as vines. And sometimes, like vines, they cling tightly enough to kill."

The Queen's lashes fluttered, her next words directed not at her daughter, but at Jace. "You would betray your own father for the sake of the Clave?"

"Even so, Lady."

She laughed, a sound as bright and cold as icicles. "Who would have thought," she said, "that Valentine's little experiments would turn on him?""

Clary looked at Jace, but she could see by the expression on his face that he had no idea what the Queen meant.

It was Isabelle who spoke. "Experiments?"

The Queen didn't even glance at her. Her gaze, a luminous blue, was fixed on Jace. "The Fair Folk are a people of secrets," she said. "Our own, and others'. Ask your father, when next you see him, what blood runs in your veins, Jonathan.""

"I hadn't planned on asking him anything next time I see him," Jace said. "But if you desire it, my lady, it will be done."

The Queen's lips curved into a smile. "I think you are a liar. But what a charming one. Charming enough that I will swear you this: Ask your father that question, and I will promise you what aid is in my power, should you strike against Valentine."

Jace smiled. "Your generosity is as remarkable as your loveliness, Lady."

Clary made a gagging noise, but the Queen looked pleased.

"And I think we're done here now," Jace added, rising from the cushions. He'd set his untouched drink down earlier, beside Isabelle's. They all rose after him. Isabelle was already talking to Meliorn in the corner, by the vine door. He looked slightly hunted.

"A moment." The Queen rose. "One of you must remain."

Jace paused halfway to the door, and turned to face her. "What do you mean?"

She stretched out one hand to indicate to her only daughter. "Once our food or drink passes mortal lips, the mortal is ours. You know that, daughter of mine."

The petite redhead was stunned. "But I didn't drink any of it!" She turned to Jace. "She's mistaken.""

"Faeries don't lie," he said, confusion and dawning anxiety chasing each other across his face. He turned back to the Queen. "I'm afraid you've drawn the wrong conclusions, Lady."

"Look to her left hand and tell me she didn't lick them clean."

Simon and Isabelle were staring now. Natasha glanced down at her hand. "Of blood," she said. "One of the sprites bit my finger—it was bleeding—" She remembered the sweet taste of the blood, mixed with what must've been sprite leftovers on her finger. Panicked, she moved toward the vine door, and stopped as what felt like invisible hands shoved her back into the room. She turned to her sister, stricken. "It's true."

Jace's face was flushed. "I suppose I should have expected a trick like that,"he said to the Queen, his previous flirtatiousness gone. "Why are you doing this? What do you want from us?""

The Queen's voice was soft as spider's fur. "Perhaps I am only curious," she said. "It is not often I have young Shadowhunters so close within my purview. Like us, you trace your ancestry to heaven; that intrigues me.""

"But unlike you," said Jace, "there is nothing of hell in us."

"You are mortal; you age; you die," the Queen said dismissively. "If that is not hell, pray tell me, what is?"

"If you just want to study a Shadowhunter, I won't be much use to you," Natasha cut in. "While my training is exceptional, due to you, Mother, I have hell in me. From both my parents I inherited heaven. Because of you, hell runs in my veins."

For the first time in a week, the Queen looked directly at her. "In truth, Natasha Lightwood, you are precisely the right person." Her eyes gleamed as she took in Clary's discomfort "

"Thanks to the changes your father worked in you, you are not like other Shadowhunters. Your gifts are different as are those of Valentine's children."

"My gifts?" Clary was bewildered.

"Yours is gift of words that cannot be spoken and your brother's is the Angel's own gift. Your father made sure of it, when your brother was a child and before you were ever born. My daughter however, she was the real deal. The most dangerous of you three, of Valentine's experiments. Natasha has heaven and hell both running in her veins."

Jace looked as blank as Natasha felt. "While the Fair Folk do not lie," he said, "they can be lied to. I think you have been the victim of a trick or joke, my lady. There is nothing special about either of my sisters."

"How deftly you downplay your charms," said the Queen with a laugh. "Though you must know you are not of the usual sort of human boy, Jonathan..." She looked from Clary to Jace to Isabelle—Isabelle closed her mouth, which had been wide open, with a snap— and back at Jace again. "Could it be that you do not know?" she murmured.

"I know that I will not leave Natasha here in your Court," said Jace, "and since there is nothing to be learned from either her or myself, perhaps you could do us the favor of releasing her?" Now that you've had your fun? his eyes said, though his voice was polite and cool as water.""

The Queen's smile was wide and terrible. "What if I told you she could be freed by a kiss?"

"You want Jace to kiss you?" Clary said, bewildered.

The Queen burst out laughing, and immediately, the courtiers copied her mirth. The laughter was a bizarre and inhuman mix of hoots, squeaks, and cackles, like the high shrieking of animals in pain.

"Despite his charms," the Queen said, "that kiss will not free the girl."

The four looked at each other, startled. "I could kiss Meliorn," suggested Isabelle.

"Nor that. Nor any one of my Court."

Meliorn moved away from Isabelle, who looked at her companions and threw up her hands. "I'm not kissing any of you," she said firmly. "Just so it's official."

"That hardly seems necessary," Simon said. "If a kiss is all..."

He moved toward Clary, who was frozen in surprise. When he took her by the elbows, she had to fight the urge to push him away. Not that she hadn't kissed Simon before, but this would have been a peculiar situation even if kissing him were something she was entirely comfortable doing, which it wasn't. And yet it was the logical answer, wasn't it? Without being able to help it, she cast a quick look over her shoulder at Jace and saw him scowl.

"No," said the Queen, in a voice like tinkling crystal. "That is not what I want either."

Isabelle rolled her eyes. "Oh, for the Angel's sake. Look, if there's no other way of getting out of this, I'll kiss Simon. I've done it before, it wasn't that bad."

"Thanks," said Simon. "That's very flattering."

"Alas," said the Queen of the Seelie Court. Her expression was sharp with a sort of cruel delight, and Clary wondered if it wasn't a kiss she wanted so much as simply to watch them all squirm in discomfort. "I'm afraid that won't do either."

"Well, I'm not kissing the mundane," said Jace. "I'd rather stay down here and rot."

"Forever?" said Simon. "Forever's an awfully long time."

Jace raised his eyebrows. "I knew it," he said. "You want to kiss me, don't you?""

Simon threw up his hands in exasperation. "Of course not. But if—"

"I guess it's true what they say," observed Jace. "There are no straight men in the trenches."

"That's atheists, jackass," said Simon furiously. "There are no atheists in the trenches."

"While this is all very amusing," said the Queen coolly, leaning forward, "the kiss that will free the girl is the kiss that she most desires." The cruel delight in her face and voice had sharpened, and her words seemed to stab into Natasha's ears like needles. "Only that and nothing more."

Simon looked as if she had hit him. Clary wanted to reach out to him, but she stood frozen to the spot, too horrified to move.

"Why are you doing this?" Jace demanded.

"I rather thought I was offering you a boon."

Jace blushed, but said nothing. He avoided looking at Clary.

Simon said, "That's ridiculous. They're brother and sister."

The Queen shrugged, a delicate twitch of her shoulders. "Alas, they do not share blood, do they? Desire is not always lessened by disgust. Nor can it be bestowed, like a favor, to those most deserving of it. And as my words bind my magic, so you can know the truth. If she doesn't desire his kiss, she won't be free."

Isabelle said something angrily, but Natasha didn't hear her; Her ears were buzzing, as if a swarm of angry bees were trapped inside her head. Simon whirled around, looking furious, and said, "You don't have to do this, Natasha, it's a trick—"

"Not a trick," said Jace. "A test."

"Well, I don't know about you, Simon," said Isabelle, her voice edged. "But I'd like to get my sister out of here."

"Like you'd kiss Alec," Simon said, "just because the Queen of the Seelie Court asked you to?"

"Sure I would." Isabelle sounded annoyed. "If the other option was being stuck in the Seelie Court forever? Who cares, anyway? It's just a kiss."

"That's right." It was Jace. Natasha saw him, at the blurred edge of her vision, as he moved toward her and put a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. "It's just a kiss," he said, and though his tone was harsh, his hands were inexplicably gentle. She let him turn her, looked up at him. His eyes were very dark, perhaps because it was so dim down here in the Court, perhaps because of something else. She could see her reflection in each of his dilated pupils, a tiny image of herself inside his eyes. He said, "You can close your eyes and think of Idris, if you like."

"I never found it very comforting," she murmured, but she shut her eyelids softly, waiting for the familiar touch of his lips. She could feel the heaviness of her clothes, cold and itchy against her skin, and the cloying sweet air of the cave, colder yet, and the weight of Jace's hands on her shoulders, the only things that were warm. And then he kissed her.

She felt the brush of his lips, light at first, and her own opened automatically beneath the pressure. Almost against her will she felt herself go fluid and pliant, stretching upward to twine her arms around his neck the way that a sun tower twists toward light. His arms slid around her, his hands knotting in her hair, and the kiss stopped being gentle and became fierce, all in a single moment like tinder aring into a blaze. His hands found her waist and suddenly, she was entwined with him, her legs giving out and wrapping around his waist, his hands freeing her hair from the delicate braid it had been styled into. Natasha heard a sound like a sigh rush through the Court, all around them, a wave of noise, but it meant nothing, she was lost in the rush of her blood through her veins, the dizzying sense of weightlessness in her body.

Jace's hands moved from her hair, slid down her spine; she felt the hard press of his palms against her waist—and then he pulled away, her head nuzzling into his neck, his head laying atop of hers, both of them panting from the passion they'd just shared for a moment. For a single second Natasha thought she might fall; she felt as if something essential had been torn away from her, an arm or a leg, and she stared at Jace in blank astonishment—what did he feel, did he feel nothing? She didn't think she could bear it if he felt nothing.

He looked back at her, and when she saw the look on his face, she didn't see the nineteen year old Shadowhunter who'd just learned the truth about his origins. When Natasha looked back at him, she saw his eyes at the Institute, when he had rejected her for the first and last time; the only time he had rejected her. She saw his eyes as the eighteen year old with conflicted feelings. He held her gaze for a split second, then looked away from her, the muscles in his throat working. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides. "Was that good enough?" he called, turning to face the Queen and the courtiers behind her. "Did that entertain you?""

The Queen had a hand across her mouth, half-covering a smile. "We are quite entertained," she said. "But not, I think, so much as the both of you."

"I can only assume," said Jace, "that mortal emotions amuse you because you have none of your own."

The smile slipped from her mouth at that.

"Easy, Jace," said Isabelle. She turned to her sister. "Can you leave now? Are you free?"

Natasha went to the door and was not surprised to find no resistance barring her way. The petite redhead was no stranger to the conniving ways of her mother, but she knew the Queen kept her word. She stood with her hand among the vines and turned to Isabelle. He was staring at her as if he'd never seen her before.

"We should go," she said. "Before it's too late."

"It's already too late."

Meliorn led them from the Seelie Court and deposited them back in the park, all without speaking a single word. Clary thought his back looked stiff and disapproving. He turned away after they'd splashed out of the pond, without even a good-bye for Isabelle, and disappeared back into the wavering re ection of the moon.

Isabelle watched him go with a scowl. "He is so broken up with."

Jace made a sound like a choked laugh and tipped the collar of his wet jacket up. They were all shivering. The cold night smelled like dirt and plants and human modernity—Clary almost thought she could scent the iron on the air. The ring of city surrounding the park sparked with erce lights: ice blue, cool green, hot red, and the pond lapped quietly against its dirt shores. The moon's re ection had moved to the pond's far edge and quivered there as if it were afraid of them.

"We'd better get back." Isabelle drew her still-wet coat closer around her shoulders. "Before we freeze to death."

"It's going to take forever to get back to Brooklyn," Clary said. "Maybe we should take a taxi."

"Or we could just go to the Institute," suggested Natasha. At Jace's look, Isabelle quickly, "No one's there anyway—they're all in the Bone City, looking for clues. It'll just take a second to stop by and grab your clothes, change into something dry. Besides, the Institute is still your home, Jace."

"It's fine," Jace said, to Isabelle's evident surprise. "There's something I need from my room there anyway."

Clary hesitated. "I don't know. I might just grab a cab back with Simon." Maybe if they spent a little time alone together, she could explain to him what had happened down in the Seelie Court, and that it wasn't what he thought.

Jace had been examining his watch for water damage. Now he looked at her, eyebrows raised. "That might be a little difficult," he said, "seeing that he left already."

"He what?" Clary whirled around and stared. Simon was gone; the three of them were alone by the pond. She ran a little way up the hill and shouted his name. In the distance, she could just see him, striding purposefully away along the concrete path that led out of the park and onto the avenue. She called out to him again, but he didn't turn around.


	2. Chapter 2

The Institute was entirely deserted. Almost entirely, anyway. Max was asleep on the red couch in the foyer when they came in. There was a book open on the floor where he'd dropped it and his sneakered feet dangled over the couch's edge in a manner that looked as if it were uncomfortable.

Natasha's heart went out to him immediately. She hadn't seen her younger brother in more than a year and they had always been close, Max had been the shadow of Natasha before she went to live with her mother, and he had to be. In the cold, unforgiving society they lived in, there was no room for mistakes or questions and Natasha was the confidante Max had found in his family. Alec was too invested in his role as the family's heir, while Izzy was too much of a wild spirit.

"Max is like a cat. He can sleep anywhere." Jace reached down and plucked the glasses from Max's face, setting them down on a squat inlaid table nearby.

"Oh, leave his stuff alone—you'll just get mud on it," Natasha said quickly, unbuttoning her wet coat. Her white dress clung to her body tightly, but she showed no signs of being uncomfortable in it.

Isabelle was frowning. "I can feel a cold coming on," she said. "I'm going to take a hot shower."

Jace watched her disappear down the corridor with a sort of reluctant admiration. "Sometimes she reminds me of the poem. 'Isabelle, Isabelle, didn't worry. Isabelle didn't scream or scurry—' "

"Do you ever feel like screaming?" Suddenly, Natasha asked Jace.

"Some of the time." Jace shrugged off his wet coat and hung it on the peg next to hers. "She's right about the hot shower, though. I could certainly use one."

"I don't have anything to change into," Clary said, suddenly wanting a few moments to herself. Her fingers itched to dial Simon's number on her cell phone, find out if he was all right. "I'll just wait for you here."

"Don't be stupid. I'll lend you a T-shirt." Natasha said, her dress tighter around her body than Clary ever thought possible. If she believed it was short when dry, it was nothing compared to when wet. Her mother would have a heart attack if she even looked at such a dress in a store.

Clary looked away. "I don't think—"

"Come on." Her tone was firm. "There's something I want to show you, anyway."

Surreptitiously, Clary checked the screen on her phone as she followed Natasha down the hall to her room.

Natasha's room was different from how she imagined it; Clary imagined a room which revealed nothing of the person who owned it. It was the opposite.

The walls were painted a pale mint green and pictures adorned the walls. There was a mess of clothes scattered over the room and an area solely dedicated to what Clary saw as storage of her weapons. Immediately, like a woman on a mission, Natasha headed over to the table she kept close to the bed and took something Clary recognized as a scrapbook out of it.

The half-faerie proceeded to sit on the bed and she beckoned Clary closer. "This is sort of like a guide to Shadowhunting. From what I've learned, you are determined to train and no Nephilim should go into battle unprepared, so memorize this as if it was worth your life, because it may as well be."

With that said, she stood up and went to the closet and pulled a folded black T-shirt, which she tossed to Clary. "Second drawer for shorts if you want a pair. We should be around the same size," she shrugged. "I'm going to shower. Yell if you need anything."

She nodded, holding the shirt across her chest as if it were a shield. Natasha looked as if she were about to say something else, but apparently thought better of it; with another shrug, she disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind her.

Clary sank down onto the bed, the shirt across her lap, and pulled her phone out of her pocket. She dialed Simon's number. After four rings, it went to voice mail. "Hi, you've reached Simon. Either I'm away from the phone or I'm avoiding you. Leave me a message and—"

* * *

"What are you doing?"

Jace stood in the open doorway of the bathroom. Water ran loudly in the shower behind him and the bathroom was half full of steam. He was shirtless and barefoot, damp boxers riding low on his hips, showcasing the deep indentations above his hipbones, as if someone had pressed their fingers to the skin there.

Clary swallowed the lump in her throat when she saw him standing there. It shouldn't have, but it hurt Clary to see him out of the same bathroom Natasha was in. After seeing them at the Seelie court, she knew well enough that they may not have finished yet and she had no wish of having to be a witness — knowingly or not — of them getting reacquainted with each other's bodies.

Clary snapped her phone closed and dropped it onto the bed. "Nothing. Checking the time."

"There's a clock next to the bed," Jace pointed out. "You were calling the mundane, weren't you?"

"His name is Simon." Clary wadded Natasha's shirt into a ball between her fists. "And you don't have to be such a bastard about him all the time. He's helped you out more than once." Jace's eyes were lidded, thoughtful. The bathroom was rapidly filling with steam, making his hair curl more.

Natasha yelled from the bathroom before coming outside, "And now you feel guilty because he's run off. I wouldn't bother calling him. I'm sure he's avoiding you."

Clary wrapped her arms around her at seeing Natasha, but didn't try to keep the anger out of her voice. "And you know this because you and he are so close?"

"I know it because I saw the look on his face before he took off," Natasha said. "You didn't. You weren't looking at him. But I was."

Clary raked her still-dank hair out of her eyes. Her clothes itched where they clung to her skin, and she suspected she smelled like the bottom of a pond, and she couldn't stop seeing Simon's face when he'd looked at her in the Seelie Court—as if he hated her. "It's your fault," she said suddenly, rage gathering around her heart. "You shouldn't have kissed like that."

Jace had been leaning against the door frame; now he stood up straight, pulling Natasha into his arms, eliciting a giggle from her. "How should we have kissed? Is there another way you like it?" His words were said in the nape of Natasha's bare neck which only made Clary angrier. There was no need for Natasha to flaunt her body in front of her, so she didn't understand why Natasha would've come out of the bathroom in her wet, lacy underwear and bra.

"No." Her hands trembled in her lap. They were cold, white, wrinkled by water. She laced her fingers together to stop the shaking. "I just don't want to see you as you play with another girl."

"It didn't seem to me that either of us had a choice in the matter." Natasha snapped back at Clary, not appreciating the fact she thought that she was nothing more than a plaything to Jace. She released herself from his arms and entered the bathroom, to come back not five seconds later covered by a light green robe. However, instead of returning to Jace's arms, she left the room to give the siblings the illusion of privacy, for instead of walking away, she leaned on the door of her room as she listened. The half faerie concentrated on her room and on the redhead and the golden boy before the picture came into her head.

* * *

"That's what I don't understand!" Clary burst out. "Why did she make you kiss? The Queen, I mean. Why force you to do—that? What pleasure could she possibly have gotten out of it?"

"You heard what the Queen said. She thought she was doing me a favor."

"That's not true."

"It is true. How many times do I have to tell you? The Fair Folk don't lie."

Natasha remembered one of the first things she had learned of her mother's people. _They'll find out whatever it is you want most in the world and give it to you—with a sting in the tail of the gift that will make you regret you ever wanted it in the first place. _"Then she was wrong."

"She wasn't wrong." Jace's tone was bitter. "She saw the way I looked at you, and you at me, Simon at you, I at Natasha, she knows how Natasha feels about me and she played us like the instruments we are to her."

"I don't look at you," Clary whispered.

"What?"

"I said, I don't look at you." She released the hands that had been clasped together in her lap. There were red marks where her fingers had gripped each other. "At least I try not to."

His eyes were narrowed, just a glint of gold showing through the lashes, and she remembered the first time she had seen him and how he had reminded her of a lion, golden and deadly. "Why not?"

"Why do you think?" Her words were almost soundless, barely a whisper.

"Then why?" His voice shook. "Why all this with Simon, why keep pushing me away, not letting me near you—"

"Because it's impossible," she said, and the last word came out as a sort of wail, despite her efforts at control. "You know that as well as I do!"

"Because you're my sister," Jace said.

She nodded without speaking.

"Possibly," said Jace. "And because of that, you've decided your old friend Simon makes a useful distraction?"

"It's not like that," she said. "I love Simon."

"Like you love Luke," said Jace. "Like you love your mother."

"No." Her voice was as cold as an icicle. "Don't tell me what I feel."

A small muscle jumped at the side of his mouth. "I don't believe you."

Clary stood up. She couldn't meet his eyes, so instead she fixed her gaze on the thin star- shaped scar on his right shoulder, a memory of some old injury. This life of scars and killing, Hodge had said once. You have no part in it. "Jace," she said. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because you're lying to me. And you're lying to yourself." Jace's eyes were blazing, and even though his hands were stuffed into his pockets, she could see that they were knotted into fists.

Something inside Clary cracked and broke, and words came pouring out. "What do you want me to tell you? The truth? The truth is that I love Simon like I should love you, and I wish he was my brother and you weren't, but I can't do anything about that and neither can you! Or do you have some ideas, since you're so goddamned smart?"

Jace sucked a breath in, and she realized he had never expected her to say what she'd just said, not in a million years. The look on his face said as much.

She scrambled to regain her composure. "Jace, I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"

"No. You're not sorry. Don't be sorry. I think it's best you leave." And when Natasha felt as Clary approached the door, she disillusioned herself to make it so she would not be seen. Not ten seconds passed between Clary leaving and Natasha entering the room again.

"Hey," she said softly. He moved toward her, almost tripping over his feet. His hands came up to cup her face; she felt the warmth of his fingertips, millimeters from her skin; knew she ought to pull away, but stood frozen, staring up at him. "How much did you hear?" he questioned softly as he pulled her body closer to his.

"Everything," there was no point in lying. They had known each other since they were children who had barely begun to train. They knew each other better than anyone, as hard as it could be to admit. They knew each other's tells for when one was lying, and it would be futile to think that they could fool one another. He knew her better than anyone and she was the same to him.

Jace only nodded. His voice shook. "I've never felt this way about anyone. I didn't think I could. I thought— the way I grew up—my father—"

"To love is to destroy," she said numbly. "I remember."

"I thought that part of my heart was broken," he said, and there was a look on his face as he spoke as if he were surprised to hear himself saying these words, saying _my heart_. "Forever. But you and Clary—" she flinched when he mentioned her name.

"Jace. Don't." She reached up and covered his hand with hers, folding his fingers into her own. "It's pointless."

"That's not true." There was desperation in his voice. "If we both feel the same way—"

"It doesn't matter what we feel. There's nothing we can do." She heard her voice as if a stranger were speaking: remote, miserable. "How could we live?"

"We could keep it a secret."

"People would find out. And I don't want to lie to my family, do you?"

His reply was bitter. "What family? The Lightwoods hate me anyway."

"No, they don't. This, what we want, it would be sickening to everyone we care about—"

"Sickening?" He dropped his hands from her face as if she'd pushed him away. He sounded stunned. "What we feel—what I feel—it's sickening to you?"

She caught her breath at the look on his face. "No," she said, in a whisper. "Love cannot be sickening to the one who feels it. Yet, that doesn't mean the people who surround us wouldn't think it was."

"Then you should have said that to begin with."

"Jace—"

But he was gone from her, his expression shut and locked like a door. It was hard to believe he'd ever looked at her another way. "I'm sorry I said anything, then." His voice was stiff, formal. "I won't be kissing you again. You can count on that."

Her heart did a slow, purposeless somersault as he moved away from her, plucked a towel off the top of the dresser, and headed back toward the bathroom. "But—Jace, what are you doing?"

"Finishing my shower. And if you and Clary have made me run through all the hot water, I'll be very annoyed." He stepped into the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind him.

Her heart pounded in her chest as an idea came to mind. So, careful not to make any noise, she removed the robe and her bra and silently entered the bathroom.

"What are you doing here, Natasha?" Jace all but groaned at seeing her.

"It's my bathroom and it was my shower before you came here. So, I'm going to shower. You can stay here or you can leave." That being said, she shimmied out of her underwear and let it fall to the floor before entering the shower and allowing her body to be drenched in ice-cold water as Jace watched in astonishment.


End file.
